A Call to the Commons, London sites
A Call to the Commons is a public art and architecture project that builds on the London Festival of Architecture 2023 theme ‘In Common’.
The high street is an urban-commons and its role is changing fast. We are in a period of testing and prototyping new models of living and working in a post pandemic world, models that call us to question our ideas about how we use and occupy our public spaces, ownership, and protest. Through this project street media is used to explore the notion of the commons through 6 newly commissioned posters by artists, architects and designers installed on billboards, fly posters and digital screens across London.
‘Together for the Final Say’ is my response to the commission. On October 19, 2019, campaigners from the People’s Vote movement took part in the ‘Together for the Final Say’ event calling for a second Brexit referendum. Their message was that regardless on how the public voted in the Brexit referendum, the British people deserved a say on the final deal negotiated. Supporters amassed in Parliament Square for this common cause, after marching en masse through central London. It’s estimated that up to 400,000 attended the event, making it one of the biggest ever outpouring of pro-EU sentiment.
The photograph portrays a large group of the People’s Vote campaigners crowded around the statue of Millicent Fawcett in the shadow of the Palace of Westminster, which honours the British suffragist leader and social campaigner Dame Millicent Fawcett – the first monument to a woman in Parliament Square and also its first sculpture by a woman (Gillian Wearing). In the wake of the Government’s 2023 Public Order Bill, where the legal definition of ‘serious disruption’ has been broadened, giving police greater flexibility when to intervene to stop disruptive protests, the photograph questions how our public spaces are now being policed and also references the debate about who we see memorialised in our public spaces.
Guests are invited to visit site locations throughout June. All locations can be sourced here. My posters are located:
Billboards: 5 – 18 June
Gypsy Corner, Victoria, London W3 6HU
Poster sites:
Wardour St, Westminster
A406 Barnet
Brixton Atlantic Road
Digital: 5 June – 2 July
Holland Park Digital Roundabout, W12 8LZ
Commissioned by Aldo Rinaldi and Rumi Bose, and sponsored by Build Hollywood and Cross River Partnership.